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Who we are

The charity is administered by its voluntary trustees with almost entirely volunteer support.

The trustees

David Gordon is the editor of the RISE Reviews and manages the RISE web site. A former Chair of the Campaign for State Education, he is a journalist, author and qualified further education lecturer and was the editor of School Governor Update, the magazine for school governors, from its launch in 2000 to its closure in 2013.

Martin Johnson Martin Johnson was a secondary teacher specialising in pupils with behaviour difficulties, mostly in inner London, and a trades union activist. He has been a staff and parent governor of a number of schools. A sociologist by vocation, he joined the think-tank IPPR in 2001 as an education researcher and was responsible for education policy and research at the ATL (Association of Teachers and Lecturers) until 2013.

Melian Mansfield has experience in all sectors of education, including early years, primary and secondary. She works with schools and local authorities across London training headteachers, teachers, governors and parents. Her areas of expertise include working with parents, children’s rights, roles and responsibilities of governors and school development planning. Formerly a teacher, she is a governor of two primary schools. Melian has written two books on home-school links and is the Chair of the Campaign for State Education, London Play and the Early Childhood Forum at the National Children’s Bureau.

Margaret Tulloch started her interest in education campaigning when campaigning about school meals and the need for a local comprehensive in the early ’80s. She was on the national executive of the Campaign for State Education for 16 years, much of it as a spokesperson. She has been chair of the Advisory Centre for Education. Currently she is a school governor and secretary of Comprehensive Future, a national group campaigning for fair admissions.

Liz Williams worked at the Advisory Centre for Education on fundraising and development. For 17 years, including nine as Chair, she was a governor of the large north London comprehensive school attended by her two daughters. After a science degree, she worked mainly in and around publishing and she was actively involved in the ’80s with the All London Parents Action Group (ALPAG).

Correspondent

Libby Goldby joined RISE as correspondent in 2003 when she moved back to London after retirement. She had been principal of a Leicestershire community college and before that headteacher of a girls’ comprehensive in Barnet. Her earlier teaching career included posts in grammar, secondary modern and comprehensive schools and four years at an independent school in New York. She is a governor of a Haringey comprehensive school and has represented governors on several committees in the borough.

On-line Information Centre researchers

Mary Andrews has an English degree that included Phonetics and Linguistics, so her career developed teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, both in colleges in England and in less formal situations abroad, and then teaching English to all age ranges in secondary schools in London. For 20 years she was the British Inter-Cultural Advisor at an American school. She now works on a voluntary basis under the auspices of the English Speaking Union, helping primary school children whose first language is not English.

Ian Helm studied philosophy at the University of Essex, completing a PhD on Theodor Adorno in 2008. Following graduation he undertook various roles in state education administration, specialising in examination and school data management. Since November 2011 he has been Senior Project Manager at Granada Learning, a leading education publisher of assessments and self-evaluation systems for schools and child mental health providers.